


bok bok, bitch

by yoonbot (iverins)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friends With Benefits, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-12 13:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15996170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iverins/pseuds/yoonbot
Summary: "You know for someone who lets your cock do the talking," Wonwoo says, sagely. "You're a real chicken when it comes to Seokmin."Knowing Wonwoo Jeon, Soonyoung thinks this is supposed to be a joke. Or: Soonyoung is not a chicken. It's just...complicated.





	bok bok, bitch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girltalk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girltalk/gifts).
  * Inspired by [can't get off, can't get over](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12134679) by [girltalk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girltalk/pseuds/girltalk). 



> dear ao3 user girltalk,
> 
> 1) thank you for letting me remix your fic! i had a hard time choosing between several of your works but ultimately decided on this one because it made me laugh so much and i kept going back to it  
> 2) 50 words into this i realized that a. i am not funny and b. who is kwon hoshi???  
> 3) i'm sorry that this isn't as funny or charming as the original but i hope you find it brings a smile to your face ♥♥♥ 
> 
>  
> 
> also shout-out to n___n for dealing with me pulling my hair out at many a 2am!

"I told you to ask him out on a date, not have sex on your final grade."

Soonyoung, who'd been slurping on his milk tea noisily, chokes on a pearl. "Hey," he coughs out. "Can we maybe, uh, talk about this later?" They're at the mall, and Soonyoung swears he just saw Jihoon Lee's mom wave at him from the Starbucks he and Wonwoo are facing. She used to drive him to the church halfway across town for Korean school on Saturdays, and Jihoon used to let him copy off his homework. He waves back.

"You brought it up," Wonwoo shrugs, stabbing the lid of his own drink with a straw with a violence undetectable by the nonchalant expression on his face.

This reminds Soonyoung of two things – one, that Wonwoo was the one who started this entire conversation, and when he'd remarked, "You suck," after Soonyoung told him that he and Seokmin had ended up getting a D, Soonyoung found it fitting to say, "Yes, I did," as a segue way into the story of how he blew Seokmin until he came all over their diorama of a smoker's lung. Hence the D. Two, that when Wonwoo moved into town a year and a half ago, the rumor mill had it that he'd been expelled from his old school for something involving a trip to the hospital.

Soonyoung knocks his head against the table. "Later," he groans, staring at the tiny label on Wonwoo's cup (120% sugar and no ice. It was a wonder that Wonwoo didn't have diabetes yet) and praying for a change in subject.

Wonwoo takes a long sip. "Did you at least tell him how you feel?"

A pointed silence other than the sound of two kids at the table next to them screaming over their mom, who’s trying to calm them down.

When he finally looks up, Wonwoo's already halfway done with his milk tea. "You know for someone who lets your cock do the talking," Wonwoo says, sagely. "You're a real chicken when it comes to Seokmin."

Knowing Wonwoo Jeon, Soonyoung thinks this is supposed to be a joke. The lady with the two young kids chokes a bit.

 

 

 

Okay, if you just looked at the facts, _maybe_ Soonyoung was _kind of_ a chicken.

“I like you,” Soonyoung says to Wonwoo at lunch a couple days later.

Wonwoo, who’d been swinging his legs around the cafeteria table, pauses and starts to retract them. “No, no, no!” Soonyoung panics. Wonwoo doesn’t let go of his bagged lunch but waits with a leg in mid-air, still ready to run. “Not you. I’m practicing for Seokmin.”

“Oh.” The brown paper bag plops on the table sadly, like the soggy grocery store bread it contains. Another day, another Wonwoo PB&J. Soonyoung wonders if he should mention that Jihoon’s allergic, which is why he never sits with them anymore. “Good, because I didn’t know how I was gonna let you down.”

“What?!” Soonyoung shouts. “You wouldn’t date this handsome hunk of meat?” He flexes the nearly-invisible muscles he’d gained (and subsequently lost over a summer of sitting around in remedial classes and in Wonwoo’s living room, playing video games) from weight-training (Soonyoung’s talking a pair of dumbbells his sister used to use in her yoga class) back when he tried to be a jock.

Wonwoo shakes his head, fingers pulling off the crust of the sandwich until only a sad, lopsided square three quarters of its original size remains. No wonder Wonwoo had the body type of a cotton swab. “I don’t put out on the first date,” he says. “Or the second.” He considers. “Or on my science project.”

Soonyoung sighs. Seokmin’s sitting a few tables away, stuffing as many grapes as he can into his mouth, Mingyu Kim egging him on. Minghao, also one of Junhui’s friends, scoots further away from them. “Well. Me and Seokmin aren’t _dating._ ”

“I’d say that’s the problem,” Wonwoo points out. Seokmin, noticing Soonyoung looking at him, waves cheerily, cheeks lumpy and full from the grapes. Two seconds later, he spits them all out.

Soonyoung thinks it’s cute. Junhui, who’d finally finished buying his lunch, says what any other normal eighteen year-old is thinking – “What’s up with Seokmin?” as he slides into the seat next to Wonwoo.

Which brings us to the next point: Soonyoung, contrary to popular belief and the parents of the entire high school population, actually thinks. Most of the time, before he acts.

For the record, Soonyoung knows he has a bad rep. The middle school PTA apparently still whispers about how he dared Seokmin into eating his homeroom goldfish in seventh grade; was voted _Most likely to die by jumping off a swing or breaking a bone or BOTH_ back in fourth grade; and of course, his newest accolade, giving his childhood best friend a blow job.

“You’re not so much a bad boy,” Jihoon tells him one day when he’s not trying to avoid Soonyoung in the halls. The casual _and hey, do you know I’m sucking off Seokmin Lee now?_ dies in his mouth. It suspiciously tastes like the tuna salad sandwich he just ate. “As just _bad._ ”

But, Soonyoung thinks that he thinks and thinks and thinks that when it comes time to actually _do_ , he manages to subvert every rational expectation.

It’s like this – when you think that you’re not supposed to think about elephants, you think about elephants. And like this, Soonyoung thinks a lot about who he thinks he wants to be in front of his peers and ends up the exact opposite. Hence Seokmin’s dick in his mouth.

“That feel good?” Soonyoung says after he pulls his lips off of Seokmin, instead of the _I like you_ he’d been practicing on Wonwoo and Junhui all week.

Seokmin’s arms are trembling from using a cart of mops to hold himself upright. “Yeah.” But his smile is so bright and blinding that Soonyoung swears he’s staring at the sun itself in the dingy and poorly-lit janitor’s closet, and he’s falling in love all over again. “It feels so good.”

Soonyoung would gladly choke on Seokmin’s dick if it meant he’d keep smiling at him like that.

 

 

 

Here’s something they don’t teach you in school: having a penis in your mouth is a hell of a lot harder than porn would make you think.

Soonyoung scrawls this formula down in math class, when the teacher’s back is faced toward the class. If _P_ symbolizes penis and _M_ Soonyoung’s mouth, then considering the extra variables lube, horniness, and erectness, to balance the equation…

Soonyoung faceplants into his notebook. Who was he kidding? He was in summer school every year for remedial classes on regular level math.

“You okay there?” Junhui whispers from the seat next to him. He peers over Soonyoung’s nose to glance at his notes, or lack thereof. “Oh. You know we’re not in sex ed right now, right?”

Soonyoung sees double of the small dick he scribbled. He scowls. Junhui Wen shouldn’t even be in regular level math, anyway. From the constant perfect scores on his exams and the rest of the advanced level curriculum on his schedule, he should probably be on math olympiad and in multivariable calculus with Wonwoo. Meanwhile, Soonyoung couldn’t even get above a fifty when Junhui let him copy off his test.

Junhui insists he’s trying to take a lighter course load this year to make room for more extracurriculars, which meant that he tagged along whenever Soonyoung and Wonwoo went to get milk tea. It’s a badly kept secret that Junhui wants to get into Wonwoo’s pants.

“Shuddup.” He tears the page out, crumples it into a ball, and shoots it into the trash can. Or, at least he tries (“Thank Mr. Kwon for your extra five problems,” Mrs. Park says after he knocks over the tissue box tower the AP Calc class from the previous period set up for the school government fundraiser). Soonyoung doesn’t admit to actually making it off the bench on his short tenure on the basketball team, after all.

As he’s picking up the tissue boxes, Soonyoung thinks of this other equation: he’s one year older than Seokmin. Seokmin is seventeen, which means Soonyoung is eighteen. Being eighteen means that by law, Soonyoung is technically an adult, even though he still gets grounded by his parents.

Being eighteen also means that:

“You’re a cradle snatcher!” Seungkwan points a finger when they’re counting aforementioned tissue boxes during lunch. Or, it’s Soonyoung’s job as treasurer to keep track of the fundraisers Seunghee plans, and Seungkwan’s the only one who actually likes to listen about his love life.

“A what?” Dammit, he lost count. He looks over at Seungkwan’s stack, nicely organized into even amounts of rows and columns. Well, he’ll just have to start over.

Seungkwan looks around to see if the teacher supervising them is around. “A cradle snatcher.” Soonyoung gets to twelve before he realizes Seungkwan’s taking from his pile. “Older man goes for a woman that was in diapers when he graduated college?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Soonyoung interrupts. “Me and Seokmin grew up together! We were in diapers at the same time.” They actually were – it took Soonyoung longer than the average kid to get potty trained. He swore Seokmin to secrecy on that fact, even though his own family members still bring it up at least once a month. “Kind of.”

“Yeah, but you’re a _senior_.” Seungkwan says it equal parts reverent, equal parts _you poor old man._ “You’re, like, the centenarians of high school.”

Soonyoung, for all his lack of math skills, is actually decent at the rote memorization that gets him passing grades on his vocab quizzes. He squints at Seungkwan, mildly offended. “Uh-huh,” he choruses, unconvinced. This is why Soonyoung doesn’t make younger friends. Other than Seokmin.

“Just don’t suck him dry,” Seungkwan continues as the lunch bell rings. “Leave that to the SAT.”

 

 

 

Soonyoung seems to act on either one of two instincts when it comes to Seokmin – one, he completely cuts off any form of contact with him once he starts high school, or two, after three years of nothing, Soonyoung chalks up the last bits of courage he has left in his body and asks Seokmin to be his biology assignment partner.

Soonyoung’s also heard from a lot of people that he’s on the precipice between self-centered and actual decent human being. “But have you ever asked Seokmin how he feels?” Wonwoo asks him one day when he's putting in his locker combo.

“He says it feels good.”

Wonwoo mimes gagging. “I’m not talking about your blow job technique.” He pulls on the door with more strength than Soonyoung thought he had in his bony arms. It has a tendency to jam. “I’m talking about whether he likes spending time with you.”

“Of course he likes spending time with me!” Soonyoung would hope. Now that he’s said it out loud, doubt starts to creep in. “We basically spent the first thirteen years of our lives together, you know?”

That’s why it was weird when Seokmin started ninth grade: after a long-overdo growth spurt and new haircut, Soonyoung was struck with the fact that his childhood best friend was now Hot. Weird in the sense that it was Seokmin, the same kid who considered Yu-Gi-Oh a high art form, high-fived him when he’d bring snacks over and they’d tear up laughing at YouTube videos instead of studying, and cried buckets and snot when Soonyoung graduated middle school before him. When he waved at Soonyoung from his locker, he’d walked straight into a pole.

It’s not Soonyoung’s greatest moment when he realizes he’s had a wet dream about someone he used to chase lizards with. But admittedly, Soonyoung’s had lower lows.

For one, he's probably going to fail chemistry.

Soonyoung has the hall pass tucked under his arm when he sees the familiar back of Seokmin’s head in Mrs. Cho’s class. It digs into his arm when he makes his way down the row before saying, “Who’re you talking to?”

Seokmin flinches and his phone falls out of his hands and onto the desk. It wakes up the kid sitting next to him, Junhwe something-or-another. “Shit. You scared me.”

“Your phone gonna be okay?” Seokmin did have a substantial case on the thing. That was also because Seokmin self-described himself as having “butter fingers.” He’d brought it up the last time he jacked Soonyoung off, and Soonyoung spent the next ten minutes rolling on Seokmin’s bedroom floor, laughing about it.

Seokmin glances around the classroom. Mrs. Cho’s out, and the only other person Soonyoung recognizes is Minkyung Kim, who hates his guts for some reason. “Yeah, it’s fine. If this phone case could withstand the Hailstorm, it can survive anything, y’know?” Seokmin flips it over in his hands and suddenly looks confused. “What’re you doing here?”

Soonyoung waves the slip Mr. Yoo gave him two days ago. He’s supposed to turn it in today at basketball practice, and it’s one period before then. In fact, Soonyoung’s supposed to be in the bathroom because that’s where he told Mrs. Park he was going. “I need Mrs. Cho to sign off on this so I can skip her class for basketball practice,” he says. “I’m failing Chemistry.”

“Oh, sweet, me too!” Seokmin grins.

“Anyway, who were you talking to? Your face was all,” Soonyoung copies the pouty expression that Seokmin had been making at his phone. “Sulky. Also, what the fuck? This town had a Hailstorm?”

“Ah, no,” Seokmin says, embarrassed. Soonyoung kicks himself internally for asking so many questions. One time, his sister quizzed them on multiplication tables and after the rapid fire round, Seokmin had big, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. They had both sucked at math back then, too. “I was texting Jeonghan. Also, Hailstorm is Mingyu’s dog’s name.”

Soonyoung frowns before forcing out a laugh. “Jeonghan, wow, I haven’t heard from him since graduation.” Jeonghan Yoon, one year above Soonyoung, had ended up as one of Seokmin’s good friends. Soonyoung remembers once when he’d been glancing at Seokmin from across the cafeteria last year, Jeonghan gave him an unimpressed look in return. He’d been put off trying to make amends with Seokmin for the rest of the year. “I always felt like he didn’t like me. But Hailstorm, that’s cute.”

Seokmin looks surprised. “Jeonghan’s own boyfriend doesn’t think Jeonghan likes him.” Soonyoung scoffs. Seokmin was really too nice. “It’s okay! I like you enough for everyone.”

And that's when Soonyoung feels it coming. The carefully practiced _I like you_ that made Wonwoo’s nose scrunch and Junhui suggest, “You gotta say it with more _conviction,_ Soonyoung, come on! You’ve touched dicks!” “I –”

“Soonyoung! Do you have a good reason for skipping class?” Mrs. Cho calls. As if she didn’t already give him F’s on his workbook assignments, she had to cockblock teen romance, too.

Soonyoung wants to cry. Instead, he gives Seokmin an apologetic look.“Ah! Mrs. Cho, I’ve got the best reason you’re gonna hear all year.”

Seokmin deserves a lot better than getting confessed to in study hall, though. Soonyoung could twist this statement into Seokmin deserves a lot better, period, but if he really didn’t want to talk to Soonyoung, he wouldn’t right?

 

 

 

“Minghao said Seokmin’s a total pushover,” Junhui says and passes him the ball. “Said it’d be a problem if he was actually smart because everyone would ask to copy off his homework, and he wouldn’t be able to say no.”

Some part of Soonyoung already knew that from the years of playing Mario Kart with Seokmin and always getting first choice on character and race track. “Oh.” Soonyoung spins and shoots. It hits the rim. Junhui runs after the ball just as Mr. Yoo blows the whistle and starts them on their cool downs.

Junhui knows Minghao from Chinese school, and the fact that their parents are apparently best friends. They take the same bus, which is where Minghao gives Junhui updates on Seokmin in exchange for Junhui not coddling him publicly in the halls. And then Junhui updates Soonyoung at basketball practice. They both don’t make it off the bench often.

It’d all been the doing of Johnny Seo, last year's captain, who begged them to join the team and prevent it from dwindling into budget-cut extinction. Unfortunately, a surge of freshmen had also signed up, making Soonyoung and Junhui’s commitment unnecessary other than the P.E. credits that they could’ve gotten through regular gym class.

“So what’re you gonna do?” Junhui asks. He catches the Gatorade bottle Soonyoung tosses him with one hand before downing half of it in one extended gulp.

“I don’t know.” Soonyoung knows for a fact that he’s going to Seokmin’s after this and that he’s probably going to put his mouth on his dick. “How’s it going with Wonwoo?”

Junhui pulls his jersey over his head. “I don’t know,” he evades like Soonyoung. “He’s so busy with that theatre thing. Do you think he even knows I’m into penises?”

Seokmin being a pushover means that maybe he’s just too nice to say no to Soonyoung. Soonyoung thinks about that during the entire five minute drive to Seokmin’s house.

It also means that Seokmin ended up having a one night stand with Jaehyun Jung before Jaehyun moved to the other side of the country.

“Man, you had a crush on him since,” Soonyoung exhales, “ _Ever._ ” He drapes his sweaty self over Seokmin’s in a lazy attempt at a post-coital cuddle. Every part of his body feels sore from the suicides Mr. Yoo made them run yesterday to the ache in his jaw from having dick in his mouth.

Seokmin looks down to meet his eyes. It gives him a bit of a double chin and Soonyoung reaches up to tickle it. “Heeeeey,” Seokmin whines. “Can we talk about something else?” He’d told Soonyoung the Jaehyun story while he’d been sucking Seokmin off. Soonyoung couldn’t help but laugh, even with a penis in his mouth.

“Like what?” Soonyoung flips himself over so his hands are splayed on Seokmin’s bare chest.

“Like…” Seokmin starts after a small _oof_ of the full brunt of Soonyoung’s weight knocking all the air out of his lungs.

For a moment, Soonyoung swears Seokmin’s going to say something that’ll cause his heart to stop again like _I like you enough for everyone._ It’s strangely intimate: the sun’s going down and shadowing the entire room, the quiet of Seokmin’s house without his parents watching TV, and the sweat drying on their skin, sticking them together.

Instead, he gives Soonyoung a full-toothed grin. “Are you feeling pizza for dinner?”

Soonyoung mimes getting shot in the heart. “I thought you’d never ask.”

 

 

 

It kind of goes without saying but: friends are important in high school. Not only on just a pure survival level, but also –

“Do you think Mingyu Kim hates me?” Soonyoung asks Wonwoo one day at lunch. Junhui’s in the library trying to finish his AP Physics homework, otherwise, Soonyoung would ask him to ask Minghao about it.

“Mingyu Kim?” Wonwoo raises an eyebrow. He and Mingyu had been partners in Home Economics last term and, though Soonyoung knew it had ended badly and with both parties getting a C plus, he’d been surprised when Mingyu flipped Wonwoo the bird from across the caf a few weeks ago. “No. Why would he do that? He’s too busy making Naruto cupcakes.”

Soonyoung glances over his shoulder at Mingyu, who’s trying to balance a celery stick between his nose and lips. “Man, that’s awesome! Do you think he’d share?”

Wonwoo stops laughing at his own joke when he sees Soonyoung’s not kidding. “You can go ask him.”

“What do you have against Mingyu anyway?” Soonyoung sighs. Wonwoo glares at the crust on his sandwich as if it’s personally offended him. “He’s nice, and gets straight A’s. And he’s friends with Seokmin. What if he hates me because I’m friends with you, and Seokmin and I are doomed to be friends with benefits forever?”

Wonwoo takes a bite of his sandwich. “First of all, people like Mingyu are too mainstream. Second, that’s dumb. Haven’t you heard of _‘love conquers all’_?”

Soonyoung stares at him blankly. “So if Seokmin likes you,” Wonwoo rolls his eyes, “he’d like you even if you were friends with me, and even if Mingyu hates my guts. Dude, were you absent for the entire unit on Chaucer?”

But it’s like back when Soonyoung and Seokmin were all but joined at the hip through middle school, and Soonyoung got confused for the kid who cried every year at the Fun Run when that was Seokmin. Even before Soonyoung reached out to Seokmin again this year, Jihoon would take the time to ask “So how’s that Seokmin guy?” when they’d do homework together on occasion, and Jihoon saw Seokmin every day in theatre.

So despite what Wonwoo says, in a town where he’s gone to the same school as basically everyone sans Wonwoo since kindergarten, you just can't escape some kinds of associations. “Yeah,” Soonyoung sighs, feeling hopeless. “Just don’t make him hate you in theatre.”

Wonwoo, Soonyoung sometimes forgets, is a better friend than he is a joke teller, ‘cause he does that and more.

 **16:09 wonu**  
_> make sure u wear smth nice on fri  
>i invited seokmin to my bday party_

 **16:11 soonyoung**  
_> OH MY GOD_  
_> ♥♥♥♥♥_  
_ >ur actually the best!!!!!_

 **16:28 wonu**  
_> who else is gonna support ur love life  
>btw dont forget u owe me a gift_

 

 

 

It's Friday night and Seokmin is late.

“Hey, Soonyoung.” Junhui slings an arm around his shoulders. “Eat some more carrots!” He’d brought a vegetable party platter as Wonwoo’s birthday present, apparently on pretense that it’d cancel out the blood sugar raising effects the over-sweetened milk tea and PB&J’s of Wonwoo’s normal diet caused. That, and a box of popsicles.

“Do you think I should call?” Soonyoung wails from where he’s lying on Wonwoo’s couch. As of six forty-five it’s just him, Junhui, and the birthday boy himself. “Text? What if he’s gotten lost? Or into an accident?”

Wonwoo looks up from his phone game to glance at the fancy grandfather clock that’s in his living room. “I think he’s fine. Everyone’s gonna be late anyway.”

“But Seokmin’s never late!” It’s a lie; Seokmin’s the type of kid that has to sprint to the school gate before it closes in the morning. Soonyoung knows because he’s usually running with him. “You know, lemme call him,” he says, punching in his number.

“Hey.” Wonwoo chucks a throw pillow at him. “Stop.” Throws another one. “Freaking.” And another one. “Out.”

His eyes soften as Soonyoung's spitting a feather out of his mouth. “Don't worry, you look great.”

Soonyoung falls back so his head dangles off the edge of the ottoman. “I’d better,” he mutters into his hands. He and Wonwoo had spent two hours after school at the mall, searching for a nice outfit. The tag at the back of his jeans was starting to chafe his skin.

Junhui pats his hip reassuringly. “Let’s eat cake!” So they do.

After an hour and the decimation of the entire cake (other than the piece Soonyoung managed to save for Seokmin and that he’d been guarding since), there’s a few more people milling about – Jihoon actually showed up, Changkyun Im and Myungeun Park from some of Wonwoo’s AP classes, and, for some reason, the Minkyung Kim that hates Soonyoung’s guts. Still no Seokmin.

Maybe he forgot. Maybe Seokmin didn’t want to come in the first place and only told Wonwoo yes in order to not hurt his feelings. Maybe –

 **19:57 soonyoung**  
_> hey r u running late?  
>i’m jw cos wonu mentioned u were coming or smth_

Five minutes pass. Soonyoung wants to throw up.

Wonwoo’s talking to Junhui, who’s sitting on the arm of the couch with a popsicle between his lips. Well, not so much talking as staring at Junhui’s mouth but. Soonyoung feels that he shouldn’t intrude.

“Hey.” He stops Jihoon, who’s about to enter the bathroom. “Can you give this piece of cake to Minkyung? It was supposed to be for Seokmin, but I don’t think he’s coming.” When he says it aloud like that, maybe Soonyoung wants to cry more than he wants to throw up.

Jihoon narrows his eyes. “Are you still scared of her?” but Soonyoung’s already slipping on his shoes and heading out the door.

 **20:05 soonyoung**  
_> hey i kno its ur bday_  
_> srry for ditching so fast_  
_ >have fun w jun ;)_

 **03:12 wonu**  
_> go get em tiger_  
_> also wtf_  
_ >did jun_  
_ >oh fuck_

 

 

 

The drive to Seokmin’s house is strangely nostalgic. Strange because Seokmin’s had Soonyoung over at least twice a week ever since they started their rated NC-17 play dates a few months ago, if they weren’t at Soonyoung’s doing the exact same thing.

Also strange because it’s usually barely even dusk by the time Soonyoung leaves for home. When he parks his car across the street and turns off the engine, the lights are on in Seokmin’s living room and there’s a new silver Camry parked in the driveway.

Soonyoung plants himself at Seokmin’s front door and rings the doorbell before he has the chance to think about it.

“Soonyoung?” Seokmin’s mom says when she opens the door. She’s still in her scrubs from work and aside from a few more gray hairs than he remembered her having back when they were in middle school, she looks exactly the same. She wraps her arms around him. “Oh, come in, come in! Have you eaten yet?”

Soonyoung laughs as he toes off his shoes. “I came to see Seokmin. Is he upstairs?”

“Oh, he went out a while ago to Mingyu’s,” Seokmin’s mom says. She’s rummaging around for something in the kitchen. “But why don’t you wait for him to come back? I’ll get you some kimbap.”

Soonyoung can’t find it in himself to argue otherwise, so he sits. With the yellowy lights on and blinds drawn, Seokmin’s living room is how he remembers it as a kid – warm. Coffee table and new TV aside, everything else was trapped in time, from the well-used sofa covers to the framed photos lining the walls, documenting every important moment in Seokmin’s life.

Seokmin’s mom hands him a tupperware full of kimbap. “Here, I think your mother wanted some, but I packed extra in case you want to eat a few now.” She takes the seat beside him on the couch. “Usually Seokminnie texts me if he’s coming home later, but I thought he’d be home by now.”

Soonyoung had made it a goal when he was eight to charm the pants off of Seokmin’s parents after he’d gotten Seokmin taken to the ER for jumping off a swing. “Actually,” he says. “I came to see you, eomma.” Some old habits just die hard.

Seokmin’s mom laughs. Seokmin’s got her smile. “You flatter me,” she says, patting him on the shoulder. “I forgot, we haven’t seen each other in years! And Seokminnie hasn’t said anything about you. How are you? How’re college applications?”

It’s like a douse of cold water. Soonyoung gets it. It’s not like he can tell his own parents about how he’s hanging out with Seokmin again when 70% of the time they spent together involved their nether regions. Some part of Soonyoung aches at the thought anyway.

But Soonyoung’s fine. College applications are...going, to say the least (his SAT score was hopelessly mediocre and his progress report card had been a solid row of C’s, with one B plus in basketball and an F in chemistry). And Seokmin’s doing great, as far as he can tell.

Somewhere in the middle of Seokmin’s mom telling Soonyoung the story of Seokmin’s first driving lesson and the both of them poring over old photo albums, Seokmin walks in. “Oh Seokminnie!” his mom says. Soonyoung holds in his laugh at the almost comically confused look on Seokmin’s face. “Soonyoung came to see you and – what time is it?”

“Almost ten.” Soonyoung only realizes how there’s that stupid ache in his chest when he lets out a breath.

Seokmin’s mom leaves them after reminding Soonyoung to give his mom the kimbap. Seokmin takes the seat she vacates wordlessly. “Hey dude,” he says, once he’s settled in, sinking into the maybe too-soft cushions. “What brings you to mi casa?”

Soonyoung feels his heart thudding. “Ah,” he starts, rubbing the back of his head. “You weren’t at Wonwoo’s party so I just dropped by to make sure you were okay. But your mom told me you were at Mingyu’s.”

“Sorry, I was going to come, but um…” Soonyoung watches as Seokmin smooths down the thighs of his pants. Soonyoung tries not to think of all the things he’s done between them, especially knowing that Seokmin’s mom is just down the hall. “Mingyu. He doesn’t really like Wonwoo. I just felt, a bit, weird about it. I mean, he wouldn’t have been that mad at me, but I’d feel bad.”

A rock sinks into Soonyoung’s stomach. “Right,” he says, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. “I totally get it.” And he really does. _Love conquers all,_ Wonwoo’s pasty pancake ass.

He looks down at the coffee table, where a spread of Seokmin’s faces in old photos smile back at him. Soonyoung suddenly feels like a huge loser for some reason. He picks one up. “Your mom really documents everything, huh?”

Seokmin flops back into the sofa. “You have no idea. Remember how she got my baby teeth made into a necklace?”

And Soonyoung, for all the strange, indigestion-like feelings swirling in his gut, has to laugh at that. “Oh my god, that was amaaaaaazing.” He thinks about it. “Does she still have your baby clothes framed in her room?”

“Of course.” Seokmin draws himself back forward, starting to rifle through the pictures too. “This one’s nice,” he says, showing Soonyoung. It’s the one of Soonyoung’s middle school graduation, with Seokmin, Soonyoung, and Soonyoung’s older sister at Popeyes. Soonyoung would still die for their spicy chicken tenders to this day.

Soonyoung feels the smile grow on his face with his pick from the pile. “I like this one.” It’s from the same day, but Soonyoung has his graduation cap on and Seokmin crying through a smile at the camera.

“Dear God,” Seokmin gurgles into his hands.

Soonyoung puts the photo down and settles back into the couch. “Man, you’ve changed so much.” And Seokmin really has. Soonyoung thinks of all the times they’ve spent together before high school, and all the times they didn’t spend together in high school, and what they have now. He wonders if the latter two are all his fault, for not having the balls to say what he should’ve. That, or for not having the brain cells to think of it.

“Yeah, you have.” A pause. “Wait, what?” Seokmin says.

Soonyoung grins at him. “Excuse me, Grandpa?” he replies, using his best impression of a grandma voice. It used to be an inside joke between them, and they'd play different characters until one of them cracked. “I haven’t changed at all, I’m still as young as the day you married me.” He waves around an invisible cane.

“Eyyy, Grandma,” Seokmin says in his grandpa voice, playing along. He holds Soonyoung’s face in his hands. “How can I look at anyone else? Not when you paid so much for those botox shots.”

Soonyoung guesses what all those characters had in common were that they were all in love with Seokmin. He leans forward to kiss him, fingers finding their way to Seokmin’s wrist. Seokmin responds by cupping the back of Soonyoung’s neck, and Soonyoung thinks that it’s the only thing holding him together.

“Really, though,” Soonyoung tells him after he’s moved back. “I haven’t changed at all.” He’s still the same headass, and the roundness of his cheeks that his mom kept telling him was baby fat hadn’t faded into a magically chiseled face. “You’ve changed so much.”

Seokmin gives him a look. “That’s not true.” He clears his throat. “You’ve got it mixed up.”

“It’s truer than your birth certificate, Seokmin,” Soonyoung insists, waggling a finger. “You used to be like… sloppy, kind of a mess. In a good way. Now you’re…” _Hot. The love of my life._ Soonyoung gives Seokmin an up and down glance with his eyes instead of voicing those thoughts. “Different.” (Soonyoung, conversely, not hot or the love of Seokmin’s life, is also not a good essay writer.)

“Is that why you stopped talking to me when you started high school?”

Soonyoung flinches. Seokmin looks stricken for saying it, even though he has every right to ask.

Soonyoung doesn’t know how to answer without breaking his own heart into little tiny pieces and he’s not ready to do that on Seokmin’s couch, cowardly and selfish that he is. “I didn’t stop talking to you,” he tries. “I just… didn’t know how to talk to you. Our lives became so different.”

Seokmin doesn’t appear convinced. “Yeah, I get it,” he allows Soonyoung anyway. Soonyoung has never felt more like a jackass to Seokmin’s sunshine-ness.

“I should get going,” he says. He suddenly feels tired and unwelcome, even though Seokmin’s living room used to be like his second home. “I bet Junhui’s gotten bored by now and sent out the mass text invite, Wonwoo’s going to freak out.”

Seokmin, the perfect host alongside being the perfect boy for Soonyoung, walks him to the door. “Bye,” he smiles, closed-lipped, as Soonyoung slips on his shoes. “Sorry you had to come all this way.”

Soonyoung bets that when it comes time to it, Seokmin will even give him bandages and medical tape. For breaking his heart. “Nah, don’t even sweat it.” He pulls out the photo of Seokmin crying over him that they’d looked at earlier. “I kept a souvenir.”

It dissolves the odd weight they’d held between them for the past five minutes. “Nooooooooo,” Seokmin whines. “My mom’s gonna notice it’s gone.”

“I’ll tell her it’s at my house so you can’t burn it.” Soonyoung doesn’t mention that he kind of wants to cry like Seokmin’s crying in the picture right now. “Bye, Seoku, take care, yeah?”

He lets out a breath when he closes the door to his car. The lights to Seokmin’s living room go off. Soonyoung sticks the photo on the dashboard and drives away before he thinks himself into circles around how at this point, Seokmin could tell him to eat his own heart out and he probably would.

 

 

 

For the record, Soonyoung is not moping.

“Okay,” Wonwoo says, eyebrows raised when Soonyoung tells him as much. “Suuuuure.” He sips his milk tea and stretches out so his bare feet prod Soonyoung’s laundry pile in the corner of his room, coincidentally right next to his hamper.

Of course the weekend that Soonyoung finds out Seokmin’s never going to love him back, Wonwoo, by some unfair turn in the universe and Soonyoung checking his Snapchat for once, finally starts dating Junhui. Out of spite, Soonyoung throws a used tissue from his nightstand at him. “Fuck you, dude.” He flops back onto his bed. “I’m just tired.” It’s not even lunch time.

“Okay,” Wonwoo repeats. He starts scrolling through his phone, uninterested. “Sure.”

In context: Wonwoo only came over to Soonyoung’s after he texted him _YOU WERE WRONG_ and didn’t reply to any of his subsequent texts or calls. Wonwoo really hated being told he was wrong without being given the chance at a rebuttal, and Soonyoung really hated moping alone.

But Soonyoung also really hated being ignored, so he caves. “Seokmin’s never gonna date me. Or ask me to date him,” he finally says. More to the ceiling than to Wonwoo. “So much for that _‘love contrasts all’_ bullshit.”

“ _’Love conquers all’_ ” Wonwoo corrects. He puts his phone down. “And wow, is this really about Mingyu? I wouldn’t think of Seokmin as someone who cared about that kind of thing.”

“I don’t know.” And Soonyoung really doesn’t. “But I think I’ve gotta end it.”

Wonwoo stands up to peer over Soonyoung on his bed. “Look, if you really wanna end things with Seokmin, that’s cool. But if you’re ending things because he won’t be with you for something that’s not even your fault,” Wonwoo scrunches his nose, “I don’t think he’s right for you.”

Soonyoung opens his mouth to protest Seokmin’s innocence. But then – “Wow, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me.” He sits up and they almost bonk heads. “I wish Junhui started sucking your dick earlier.”

Wonwoo’s face turns a tomato red. “Oh my god, Soonyoung.”

 

 

 

Soonyoung spends the rest of the weekend doing some thinking. Here’s a short list of what he comes up with:

1) He’s going to give Seokmin the best orgasm of his life. (Even after the strange feeling Soonyoung had left Seokmin’s house with on Friday, Seokmin had texted him the next day, inviting him over Thursday afternoon. Soonyoung, who possessed the will of a piece of grass in a tornado when it came to Seokmin, replied with a _sure :)_ and then proceeded to question all his life decisions.)

2) And then he’s going to have to end it. (He writes it on his Chem lab report in hypothesis format – IF Seokmin is too nice to tell Soonyoung that he doesn’t like him, THEN Soonyoung has to break his own heart. Somewhere along those lines, Soonyoung realizes he has no idea how to do the actual assignment. Mrs. Cho really is going to fail him.)

Come Monday, all of Soonyoung’s plans hit the fan with a:

“Mingyu, I’m sorry.”

Wonwoo Jeon is a rational person. Or, at least Soonyoung likes to think. Or, at least until he walked up to Mingyu Kim during lunch and proceeded to apologize to him. Soonyoung feels his eyes bugging out of his head.

“Hey,” Soonyoung frowns, catching Wonwoo’s hand when he speed walks back to their table. “What was that?”

Wonwoo just shrugs. “You’re welcome?” There’s a slight tear in his lunch bag. “Look, I couldn’t stand this _Romeo and Juliet_ thing you and Seokmin have anymore because of me and Mingyu...”

“You did it?!” Junhui screams, setting his lunch tray down on the table before manhandling Wonwoo into a one-sided hug. “Oh wow, I didn’t know you’d actually take my advice!”

Soonyoung pauses mid-chew. “Wait.” Wonwoo looks like he wants to kill Junhui but also wants to grab his face and stick his tongue down his throat in the middle of the cafeteria. “Did Junhui – ?”

And then he bursts out laughing.

“Shut your face,” Wonwoo grumbles, pushing Soonyoung’s head away. Junhui grins toothily.

“You are one whipped dude, Wonwoo Jeon,” he concludes.

But in true hypocrite fashion, so is Soonyoung. As if on cue, Seokmin makes eye contact with him from his table, expression unreadable.

Soonyoung can feel his lips quiver from the small smile he sends him.

 

 

 

 **14:03 soonyoung**  
_> dude u gotta tell me  
>how’s the s e x_

 **14:05 wonu**  
_> rnt u in class w jun rn  
>ask him_

 **14:06 soonyoung**  
_> dont avoid the q_  
_> juns taking notes 4 me_  
_> how r his teeth? :-)_

 **14:09 wonu**  
_>...y is he such a pushover  
>also what kind of bj r u giving if it involves teeth???_

 **14:11 soonyoung**  
_> o  
>o shit_

 **14:16 wonu**  
_>..._  
_> wow i feel so sorry for seokmin’s dick_  
_> on the bright side he must rlly love u_

 

 

 

Teenagers make stupid decisions. 

Soonyoung, legally adult but still in high school and easily influenced by his younger peers, conveniently considered himself part of this demographic whenever he pulled a stunt that landed him in detention. There are, however, stupid decisions and then there’s this:

Soonyoung spends the next three days practicing his blow job technique instead of finishing his Chemistry assignment (if Mrs. Cho is going to fail him anyway, why mess with fate?).

There’s a lot of prowess necessary in putting a sensitive body part in your mouth and being in charge of not only not harming it, but also making the person that it’s attached to actually feel good. Soonyoung thought he’d been scraping by before (pun not intended), but after watching a good amount of gay porn (he really hopes no one checks his browser history), practicing on phallic-shaped foods (“Soonyoung, you know you have to peel the carrot before you eat it,” his mom tells him when she catches him deep-throating it in front of the fridge and, in a panic, Soonyoung takes a bite out of the vegetable. He smiles through the pain. It takes him thirty minutes to finish chewing), and asking Junhui for advice (according to Wonwoo, Junhui had some boss-level skill at sucking dick that Soonyoung did not ever want to hear the fleshy details of again. Let what happens in Wonwoo’s bedroom stay there, please God), Soonyoung thinks he’s ready to blow Seokmin’s mind. Pun again not intended.

On Thursday, Soonyoung can confidently say he gives Seokmin the best suck of his life (not Seokmin’s but Soonyoung’s). That is, until Seokmin comes and starts sobbing as Soonyoung’s trying not to choke on his cum.

“Seokmin?!” Soonyoung wipes his mouth and then crawls up beside him. “Seokmin, what’s wrong? I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

To be fair, Seokmin was a crier. Unlike Soonyoung who laughed in the face of every bad thing that happened in his day-to-day life, Seokmin used to be the kid that bawled when his mom left him at school in kindergarten. Is still kind of that kid, if his reaction to Soonyoung’s blow job is anything to go off of.

But this time, Soonyoung doesn’t know _why_. “No,” Seokmin says, voice mucousy and full of tears. “I’m fine.”

Soonyoung wonders if Seokmin cried after every shitty blow job he’d given him before, waiting until Soonyoung cleared out of his house or once he was in his car alone to think of all the chafing he’d put his dick through. But this time Soonyoung _really_ thought – “Was it good?”

Seokmin turns to his side and looks at him. His eyes are watery, his face is blotchy red from crying, and even like this, Soonyoung’s really completely in love with him. “It was seriously good,” he tells him. “You blew my fucking mind, I don’t think I have any sperm left.”

“Yeah?” Soonyoung feels proud. “I’ve been practicing.” Or, as proud as you can feel when you’ve resolved to give your long-time crush the best blow job as one last hurrah before you let him stomp all over your heart. Soonyoung suddenly feels sick.

“Oh?” Seokmin’s voice cracks. “On who?”

“Wha –? N-no one.” Soonyoung didn’t see that coming. “I’ve been watching porn and shit, and practicing on carrots and bananas, and. You’re my first guy, you know? I didn’t really know what I was doing half the time, but I wanted to make it good for you. But, um.” He sucks in his cheeks, thinking, and then. Is there someone else in Seokmin’s life that he’d been messing around with? “Wait, have you been doing it with other peo—Seokmin, are you crying again?”

There’s tears running down Seokmin’s cheeks again. “No,” he insists, wiping at them and then looking down at his hand. “Yes.” Seokmin was never a good liar after all. “It’s the, it’s the oxytocin. That’s the love hormone, right?”

The only hormones Soonyoung knows anything about are the ones that lead to having unprotected sex and end with teenage pregnancy and STD warnings in the credits of the videos they show as part of the sex ed curriculum. “I don’t know,” Soonyoung says. He reaches over and wipes a tear from Seokmin’s face. “I’m so fucking bad at chemistry.”

Another tear slides down Seokmin’s cheek to replace it. It reminds Soonyoung of how impermanent he really is. “It’s biology, I think.”

“I’m bad at biology too, you know that.” _And_ he’s bad at everything when it comes to Seokmin apparently – from blow jobs, to watching uselessly as he cries, to communication. “Seoku, why are you crying?”

Seokmin covers his eyes with the heels of his palms as if it’ll stop his tears from falling. _This is it,_ Soonyoung thinks to himself. _He’s going to break my heart,_ and braces himself for the impact, and then Seokmin says: “I like you so much.”

Soonyoung thinks his ears are broken.

Seokmin keeps blubbering, immune to the cogs on overload that are causing steam to escape Soonyoung’s ears. “I like you so much that I can’t do this with you anymore. I thought I could because I wanted you to be my friend again so badly.”

“I…” Soonyoung’s still processing. Just when he thinks he understands, Seokmin looks at him with those shiny eyes of his and Soonyoung loses his train of thought. “Seokmin, why is this a problem?”

Seokmin hides face into his pillow. “Because I don’t want you to just want me around to have sex with. I-I want to be more than your friend.” It muffles his words. “And now you’re so good at sex anyone will want to date you and then you won’t be my friend anymore or my more than friend, and it’ll really fucking suck. It’ll feel like ninth grade all over again, except a million times worse. I like you so much I think I’m in love with you.”

Soonyoung feels dumb.

Soonyoung usually feels dumb when he’s sitting for an exam he didn’t study for and spent classes he should’ve paid attention in sleeping. But Seokmin – Seokmin’s like the hardest problem on the last page of each SAT section, except there’s no multiple choice options and Soonyoung’s not willing to guess the wrong answer.

That, and there’s no way Soonyoung could’ve studied for this moment. “Seokmin,” he says, wrapping his arms around him like an octopus. “Hey, look at me.”

“I want to die,” Seokmin says to the pillow.

Soonyoung wants to laugh. Soonyoung also wants to cry. Soonyoung also wants to kiss Seokmin until they’re both grandpas, and even after that still. “Think you can beat me?” he smiles, heart doing some crazy gymnastics in his chest. “I’ve liked you since I was fifteen.”

Seokmin whips his head around to look at him. “Huh? That’s...ninth grade. No you didn’t.”

Soonyoung nods. “I did.” He brushes Seokmin’s hair out of his face gently, afraid he might burst into tears again. And then it all comes out in a rush. “I freaked out. We didn’t talk much that summer because you had music camp, and then when you started high school suddenly you were best buds with Mingyu Kim and Minghao, and you had upperclassmen like Jeonghan on you like a watchdog. Which, I still don’t think he liked me, by the way. But I panicked and thought if I avoided you it’d go away.”

There’s silence for a moment. Not the uncomfortable kind that Soonyoung would feel an anxious need to fill, but warm and easy. Lethargic. Seokmin’s face flits through a series of emotions before the pinched look of thought he’d drawn it into softens.

And then, after what feels to Soonyoung like five thousand years, he scowls. “You suck,” Seokmin says and kicks at Soonyoung. The corners of his lips pull up before he forces them down in his best attempt of a stern look. Unfortunately, Seokmin’s just cute. “You really hurt my feelings.”

“I do suck,” Soonyoung sighs. He folds his hands over his belly button in his best impression of a dead man, because that’s what he deserves for hurting Seokmin for so long. Death. “Wonwoo told me I really fucking sucked. And every time he’d push me to do something I’d make it worse. _‘I told you to ask him out on a date, not have sex on your final grade’._ ” (Wonwoo was also, despite his bad jokes and sloth, Soonyoung had to admit, the best fucking friend in the world.)

Soonyoung counts the beats of his heart. _One, two, three, four, five –_ “A kiss.” Seokmin hugs Soonyoung’s middle, pulling him close until he can feel Seokmin’s heart beating too, and starts to count those. “Kiss me and I’ll forgive you.”

Soonyoung faces him, surprised. Seokmin really was a pushover. “You’re too nice for your own good,” he smiles, smoothing a hand through Seokmin’s hair.

“Everyone keeps saying that.”

 _His_ pushover, though. “Everyone’s right,” he laughs. And then Soonyoung, being Soonyoung, asks: “Hey, can I blow you again?”

Seokmin swallows loudly. “My refractory period isn’t that fast, give me time,” he says, pinching the stretchy skin of Soonyoung’s arm. The look in Seokmin’s eyes is fond, as soft as his heart, when his gaze trails down to Soonyoung’s mouth. “Kiss me first, you animal.”

And Soonyoung really can’t say no to that.


End file.
